Used car values stabilise at BCA in July as volumes continue to rise

Used car values stabilised at BCA in July, with the rising supply of stock well matched by increasing demand from professional buyers.  Insight from BCA Valuations shows that values were marginally down, month-on-month, while sold volumes increased by nearly a third.

Used car values at BCA averaged £8,517 over the month, down by £48 (0.6%) compared to June, with sold volumes rising by more than 30%.  Conversion rates remain strong and the online sector-focussed channels are frequently seeing up to 1,500 buyers joining individual events.

BCA offered record numbers of vehicles online in July, with daily sales entries typically exceeding 5,500 and often rising above 6,000.  On Wednesday, 29 July, BCA offered nearly 6,300 vehicles in a packed programme of online sales, the highest volume of vehicles ever offered by BCA in online sales on one day.

BCA continues to enhance its online auction programme to meet the changing needs of buyers in the post-Covid market and introduced a more streamlined sales structure in July.  This helped buyers to locate the vehicles they need, with vehicles catalogued as Dealer, Fleet (including BCA Outsourced Solutions) or Finance alongside the regular UKCGR stock, LCV and solus vendor sales.

BCA also released an update to its Buyer app with the introduction of new functionality allowing customers to place bids on BCA’s Bid Now online auction platform.

BCA COO UK Remarketing Stuart Pearson commented “Momentum continued into July and BCA has expanded its online remarketing programme significantly to meet the demand, running 20 sales in parallel at any one time, with auctioneers and clerks, vendor representatives and buyers operating remotely and safely socially distanced.”

He added “Daily entries are regularly exceeding 5,500 vehicles and demand across most sectors is ahead of what we would typically see at this time of year.  Our focus has been on creating online events that are targeted to make it easy for customers to find the stock they need, provide maximum choice, along with the ability to scale quickly to meet the demands of the market.”

Pearson added “We have had up to 1,500 buyers logging in for some individual sales underlining the appetite the market has for the stock on offer at BCA, particularly when this is multiplied across the many concurrent sales taking place each day. In addition, the activity through our fixed price BCA Buy Now channel and BCA Bid Now timed auctions has significantly accelerated from the period prior to lockdown, with many customers having the confidence to purchase from these channels for the first time.”

“There is continued interest in higher value, retail ready vehicles and we are now running weekly Top Car sales featuring prestige, luxury and sporting marques, reflecting the demand from our buyers for this stock.”

“Interest remains high for lower value, budget vehicles, maintaining the trend we have seen since the first days of lockdown and resulting in some unprecedented price increases.”

*Article Source www. bca.com